I’ve only formed one meaningful, potentially lasting relationship throughout my three years of university. I think it was by mistake (she e-mailed me after I addressed a class to raise funds for tsunami relief earlier this year).

It’s interesting (read: sad) how I can know hundreds of people around university, and not really know anyone.

Then you’ve got something like facebook. Apparently, I’ve got 80 “friends”. Only, I barely talk to half of them and bump into most of the rest by mistake. Many are political acquaintances (I’ve got the entire executive of SAC, except the VP UTM, on my friends list) and ASSU-related.

I’m not sure I care, either; but then why would I take the time to write it down?

I ended up causing a conversation among six complete strangers (including myself) on the subway today. I’ve got to do this more often.

I went to Toys ‘R’ Us today and saw that they finally had the Sentinel Series‘ Spider-Man figure. So I bought it (naturally).

Here’s Spidey standing on my Landmark Thucydides text from POL323 (Thucydides, he’s the guy who wrote about the Peloponnesian War about 400-odd years B.C.).

As you can see, they tried to reproduce the characteristic webbing that Spidey has under his arms, as can be seen on the cover of Amazing Fantasy #15 (the first Spidey comic, which, by the way, the action figure is based on).

They got it down to some degree, but it’s basically achieved by throwing a whole net over Spidey’s back (which I haven’t pictured).

At any rate, it’s an improvement over the older Spidey figure they released that was ostensibly patterned on the same comics. Problems: the spider emblem on the chest is remarkably modern (started in the late eighties), and the webbing pattern on the mask isn’t drawn properly — in the more stylized Spidey that soon appeared, the webbing above the eyes splits into two and the webbing below the eyes emerges as one column; whereas in the first few Spidey comics the webbing splits in two columns above and below the eyes. In fact, that’s one of my pet peeves: when people draw Spidey, they completely mess up the webbing pattern on his face (if not everything else).

Otherwise, I’d say this older Spidey actually managed to capture the way Steve Ditko drew the eyes in most of the first comics until John Romita took over.

(Older Spidey)

I would’ve bought the Black Panther as well, but I don’t like the costume he’s wearing in this one (I prefer the pared down, non-cape, non-golden accessories version).

A few days ago, in Markville Mall I found this (unlicensed) Spidey toque, and I had to have it. So here it is, as modeled by me, standing in front of my Spider-Man calendar.

In other news, I called the iPod folks and they said they’d repair or replace my iPod. If they replace it, I’m going to get a case for it this time so it doesn’t scratch up every time it moves.

In a strange full circle type of thing I recently found out that pundit-blog Little Green Footballs found my old “This Is Islam” presentation and presented it to his readers. (Mustaqiim Sahir’s chest-slapping acapella isn’t accepted by many of the Salafis I know as legitimate. Boo hoo, LGF. Idiot.)

I’ve tried to distance myself and malcolm-x.org as far away from that presentation as possible. In a way I regret having made that Flash piece of crap. It’s chunky, has a crappy soundtrack, and many of my ideas about Islam have changed profoundly. Nevertheless it was made by a sincere 15/16-year old trying to present a different side of Islam than what’s usually found to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

It gave me (or, at least, my name) an instant fifteen minutes of fame around the Muslim world as Muslims in remote places waited all night for their crappy Internet connections to load the whole thing and then forwarded it to their friends. Muslims around the world — the ones who probably looked upon the burning towers of 9/11 with a sense of poetic justice but later cried for the innocents — appreciated it.

What’s ludicrous is much of the putrid ignorance posted in the comments by the readers of LGF. There’s an automatic assumption that I’m an anti-Semite (why, because I implied that Ariel Sharon is a liar?), completely ignoring the fact (pointed out by a later commenter) that I picked out the bombings of pizzerias in Israel as terrorism, pointed to the bombing of planes by Palestinian militants as terrorism, that I picked a picture of an Arab man and Jewish man living together, etc.

The vicious ignorance of the commenters toward Muslims, painting them and the entire religion with the same brush, is as vitriolic as the ignorance of several Muslims toward Jews.

At this point, I’m not comfortable enough with Islam to make a presentation like that again. If I did, it would be quite nuanced and ambivalent about many of the things in Islam. I don’t think Islam should be simplified to slogans such as “Islam is peace” nor should Islam’s claims to promotion of peace be discounted immediately.

Just when you need to listen to Francoise Hardy on your way home, your iPod’s battery is fucking up.

Today I was on campus downtown (for reasons I won’t specify) and had to be there for quite some time. At about 9:15 am I was walking into the ASSU office when I say my buddy Zain Shafiq (of Association of Political Science Students Vice-Presidential fame) walking to his office (which is in the same hall but is about six times smaller).

I wondered why Zain was on campus on a Saturday (nevermind the fact that he lives about fifteen minutes away by walk anyway) and he wondered the same. I found out that apparently there was a something called a UofT Day where high school students came and got information on many of the various programs offered by the University. Since I had a lot of time to burn I decided I’d join Zain, and help the APSS guy out.

So we got the University College, and I think we actually trekked back to Sidney Smith at least a couple of times to pick stuff up to jazz up the Political Science department’s booth. We also got t-shirts for UofT Day (which look a lot like this picture). I, of course, wasn’t really representing a department (and ASSU always decides not to participate in this) so I just kind of got it for no reason.

After helping Zain set up the Political Science booth I went around introducing myself to pretty much every booth I got a shot at (considering I was competing with high school students, who kept turning around and asking me about whatever program’s booth I happened to be at). But I think I managed well, during the lulls, to meet a lot of new people. (I also managed to advise some students on how to get into medical school, pharmacy and law — that was predictable. Consider that I was really advising a guy’s mother — they were brown — rather than the guy himself about medical school; and when I tried to address the guy directly, his mother kept jumping back in..)

I met departmental administrators, department faculty, and students in departments (graduate and undergraduate). Many of the undergraduate students were actually members of various course unions (just like Zain). Many faces I knew, many others I didn’t.

What I didn’t like was the fact that they divided the “Arts” from the “Sciences” (the former in the West Hall and the latter in the East Hall). It’s bad enough that most university students don’t have the word “inter-disciplinary” in their vocabularies, but that kind of segregation isn’t helping anything. (It was nevertheless funny to find Fine Arts, Architecture and Music in the Science section). I think they should mix up the booths even more so people don’t all simply rush to ask how to get into medical school, but are confronted by — say Philosophy — on their way over to the Human Biology table. Something might catch someone’s eyes by mistake, and it wouldn’t hurt to help along serendipity.

I’ve concluded that whenever the university holds an event like this in the future, I ought to go and crash it, just like I did this one. It’s a great way to meet new students and university personnel; and, of course, to hand out my business cards (on which I have to write my name myself, because ASSU only has generic “Executive Member” cards).

In December of 2004, in the aftermath of the South-East Asian tsunami, I wrote a piece on the fact that every day, tens of thousands of people die from hunger and malnutrition; yet we barely spare our constant attention on that. However, when something such as the South-East Asian tsunami strikes, it catches our attention and evokes a quick and substantial response.

Maybe it’s just me, but I really haven’t felt as overwhelming a response to the earthquake in South Asia as the tsunami. A lot of people seem to agree (but I stand to be corrected).

I’m trying to place why this is the case — at least, here in the West, and particularly, Canada. (In the Muslim world, the earthquake happened to strike at the beginning of the month of Ramadhan, and judging simply from the MSA‘s response at UofT, it seems that Muslims are giving heartily. Since I’m not there, I don’t know what the response is like.)

Apparently, this earthquake isn’t as Hollywood, or maybe it’s because not enough Western tourists had their vacations upset, or perhaps it’s not right after Christmas and no one feels as guilty, or maybe people are tired of giving for tsunamis and hurricanes, or maybe no one really cares about the Kashmiris anyway.

I’m also trying to grasp why my own emotional response has been so shallow. Usually I’m deeply affected by human suffering (scroll down and see how much I cry). I’m not sure if I’ve become callous or what, but this earthquake really hasn’t moved me to tears yet — and that scares me.

Moreover, I’ve learned more about the political aspects of human and natural disasters. And I have to revise my statement that “every five days, 120,000 people die from hunger — it doesn’t take American bombs … to do it.”

Imagine if India and Pakistan had invested more in their people, their infrastructure, their buildings, their hospitals, their social services and so on, instead of investing so heavily in armed forces and military research and development: Not only would the magnitude of this disaster be lessened in terms of reaching areas and not having shoddy buildings fall, but the utter poverty that many of these people were already subject to would definitely have been reduced.

This is a classic example of the guns and butter paradigm. Eisenhower said it well:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

Moreover, not all bombs are the type that are dropped from airplanes. The world economy is designed in such a way that it delivers vast profits to the Northern countries (essentially “the West”) by more or less robbing the Southern countries — Africa is a notable example. The causes are complex but rooted in the structure of this world economic order. These policies often lead to the very famines and mass starvations that we see (such as in Niger), and the ones we don’t see. These are not simply “American bombs,” per se, because other wealthy countries participate in this debauchery as well (America certainly leads the charge).

Ultimately the point remains that we don’t do anything about anything. Whether it be bringing about a responsible resolution to the “thousand years” of war that the countries we come from are often set to fight or to the economic policies of the wealthy nations that we have adopted, we do little. We continue to live our lives of complacency, caught up in our busy days and busy ways.

We cannot control natural disasters, but we can prepare for them. We can prevent economic disasters and bring about justice to the way things are done.

We see the news and realize something bad is happening and put some money in a box and hope it will go away. But it never does and it never will. It will keep coming back until we bring about a change to the way things are done and the ways of those who purport to lead us. We have to effect a paradigmatic shift.

… it’s like the elders told me:
No one person can do everything, but everyone can do something.

– “One (Remix),” Immortal Technique

Growing up here in Jerusalem, I think I had a pretty normal childhood. But normal in the Middle East is always intertwined with war.

– B.Z. Goldberg, Co-Producer/Co-Director and Narrator of Promises

I’m having a cry-fest here.

I just saw Promises, a movie about children in Israel and Palestine, on Yaser’s recommendations. Like Hotel Rwanda, some parts of it made me cry. There were scenes where I was laughing as I cried. Not an easy thing to do.

It’s genuine and it’s amazing. To echo Yaser, Yasmine described it best on her blog. If you can get your hands on it, watch it.

Last night, more like this morning, I was watching Hotel Rwanda. It was a very moving film and I think it effectively conveyed its message. Some people criticized it for not showing more gore — but it certainly didn’t have to. I was crying my eyes out at one point.

An excellent film and an excellent performance by Don Cheadle.

Go watch it.

Yaser challenged me to draw up this list. So I did. While it’s hardly all-encompassing, it’s a start:

• Music.
• Comics of all kinds. Reading, writing, drawing, making comics.
• Spider-Man.
• Action figures.
• Rainy but warm days. Walking in the rain, getting drenched in the rain, running in the rain.
• One-day international cricket matches between India and Pakistan. And Pakistan wins.
• Humour. Joking and laughing. Laughing laughing laughing. And high fives.
• Drawing. Doodling. Countless Spider-Man doodles in the margins of my notes.
• Writing.
• Creating.
• Good rap.
• Reading. Good books, Wikipedia, comics, news, articles.
• Book stores.
• Walking. Running, even if I don’t run much.
• Being the centre of attention. Public speaking.
• Children. Working and playing with them. Summer camp.
• Acting. Performing.
• Dancing and singing though I don’t know how.
• Karaoke.
• Girls. Flirting, chasing, lamenting.
• Smallville.
• Movies.
• Pizza from Cora’s.
• Good food. Mom’s cooking.
• The TTC. Subways, streetcars, buses and the RT.
• Old fashioned love songs, playing on the radio.
• Obscure songs no one else knows about.
• Helping people.
• Sweet Tarts. Caramilk. Juicy Fruit.
• Spontaneity.
• Talking. Discussing. Exchanging ideas.
• When my family’s together and talks about all kinds of things.
• Visiting family, where ever they are.
• India. Pakistan.
• My niece.
• Imparting what I’ve learned.
• Sleeping.
• Not sleeping.
• Long nights and short days.
• Long days and short nights.
• Getting lost so I can find my way again.
• Discovering.
• Learning, for the sake of learning.
• Hugs.
• Reminiscing.
• Snow. Making snowmen.
• Cinnabon and Krispy Kreme. In moderation.
• Pranks.
• Jumping around.

You swear you’ve heard it before as it slowly rambles on and on and
No need in bringin’ ’em back ’cause they’re never really gone
Just an old fashioned love song
Coming down in three-part harmony
Just an old fashioned love song
One I’m sure they wrote for you and me

What makes you happy?